Hey! How are you? Welcome back. So as long as I have the camera in my hand here I'm
gonna shoot a little bit of background. So that, in case you've ever wondered, is
a softbox light and I have that shining normally on to the left side of my face
when I shoot videos because otherwise I'll have weird shadows and stuff.
There's another, actually we'll do it this way, there's another softbox light right
there and that actually lights the ceiling and I have the light bounce down
so it kind of illuminates me from above. And I have another one over there and
that lights me from the right side of my face so I don't get weird shadows and I
actually look presentable on video and so forth. So let me go ahead and put you
guys down and hopefully - does that work? - okay perfect so hopefully we can start the
video then. So those of you who don't know me, my name is Andy and I am an
attorney licensed to practice law in California as well as New York. I am in
my office in Modesto, California. So here I normally do all sorts of cases and
this evening, I am actually recording a whole bunch of videos and talking to you guys.
So, uh, in this video, I'm going to try my best to explain the various ways in which
California determines a will to be valid or not. And when I say will, I'm referring
to the, you know, basically the document that somebody prepares when they
anticipate they're going to pass away and they list out 'Okay who gets my stuff
and, like, how much should I give each kid or something.' So that's the type of will
that I'm talking about. In this video I'm going to talk about how California law
determines whether or not a will like that is valid or not. So, um, this is the
second video in my series about the validity of wills, essentially. In the
first video, which I will play kind of over my shoulder here, uh, in that first
video I went over the way in which California law requires that a will be
signed in the first place. So in that video I go over nuncupative wills,
holographic wills, the witness procedure, if that's something that, you know, you're
concerned about, go ahead and watch that video. I'm going to go ahead and link the
full video down in the description of this video for you also. So hopefully all
of that made sense. So that first video deals with how to sign a will,
essentially. In the second video - this one - is going to to go over how you
actually determine under California law whether or not a will is valid or not.
And to give you a kind of a background about why this particular kind of
concern is actually really important. So the will laws, I guess, the laws
governing wills and probate and stuff in the United States, generally are state-
dependent. So the thing is California will have its own set of rules, Oregon
will have its own set of rules, Arizona might have its own set of rules. These
rules might be somewhat similar in certain respects, but there are a lot of
instances in which those rules will be different also. So there's no uniform
sort of laws about wills, for example. On top of that, people actually move in the
US quite a bit, so the thing is it's entirely possible that somebody might
have made a will in Arizona in 2015, for example, and then in 2016, completely
unexpectedly, they decide to move to California and then a year later they
die in California never having updated their will from Arizona, let's say. So
in those types of situations which state's laws do you apply, how do you apply
them, things like that. So that's kind of the background about
why this question of how do you determine whether or not a will is valid
is important. So in California the law that is kind of governing, you know, this
type of question is California Probate Code section 6113 which I'll write over
here as well as link down in the description for you. So 6113 is
where it's essentially at, I guess, you know when we're discussing this topic. So
6113 is not a complicated statute, like it's not like, you know, super humongous
or anything. The first two criteria that they describe in 6113 are
actually pretty straightforward. The last criteria is kind of a tongue
twister. Um, I rehearsed it and I think I have it down, but we'll see, who knows?
Yeah, anyway, we'll do the best we can. So that said, let's go ahead and get started.
So the first way under 6113 in which a will will be determined to be valid
is basically whether or not it was signed in accordance with California law.That
first video that I mentioned, you know, that I played over here and linked down
below in the description, if you watch that video, I go over two laws or two
statutes basically. It's California Probate Code
sections 6110 and 6111. And those are the two big statutes essentially that go
over how to sign a will in California or how to create a will in California. So if
you comply with either of those laws, then you essentially have created a will
under the laws of California and, not surprisingly, California will recognize
such a will as valid. So that's the first way in which to get a well recognized as
valid - basically it's created under California law. The second way to get a
will recognized in California as valid is essentially whether or not the will in
question was valid under the laws in place at the time the will was signed in
the state in which the will was signed. Hopefully that made sense.. So I'll give
you an example. So earlier I mentioned somebody who was, you know, living in
Arizona in 2015, they made a will in Arizona in 2015, then after that they
moved to California and then ultimately passed away in California. So if that's
the case, then California will basically look at it like this - this person made a
will under the laws of Arizona in 2015. What do the laws at that time in Arizona
require of a valid will? Let's say there's ten different things. You know
all ten right here and this, this will, in particular, complies with all ten of
those things. It therefore does not matter whether or not in 2016
Arizona law was changed to add a couple more things. As long as the will in
question complied with Arizona law at the time the will was signed,
that's sufficient for California to recognize that will as valid.
That's 6113(b). So those two are, I would think, the more common situations. You
know the world being as it is, of course, there are kind of the uncommon or kind
of atypical sort of situations that, you know, inevitably pop up just for you or
just when you're least expecting it. So this is where 6113(c), for example, I
think comes in. So 6113(c) is a little bit complicated to explain, but I'll give
it my best shot. So when you're looking at 6113 you have to examine three
different possible states. So the thing is the state were the person who passed
away - the decedent - was domiciled, where the person had a place of abode, or where
the person was a national. So any state in which any of these three things are
true at either (1) the time the will was made or (2) the time the decedent passed
away. So any state in which any of these three are true at either of these two
times. If the will in question complied with any of these possibly six different
states then the will will be valid. Hopefully that makes sense. The basic
idea is as long as the will in question complied with the law of any of these, er,
sorry, as long as the will complied with the laws of any state in which any
of these three are true at either of these two times, then that will will be
valid also. That's 6113(c). So, um, yeah. Hopefully that made sense. It's
complicated, I think, unnecessarily, but that's the way the law is written. So to
sort of recap then, I guess, so under 6113(c) of the California
Probate Code, there's basically three ways in which a will will be determined
to be valid in California. The first is whether or not, you know, basically, it was
executed in compliance with California law. Number two is
whether or not the will in question was valid under the laws of the state in
which it was executed at the time that the will was executed. So did it comply
with the laws of the state in which it was signed at the time it was signed. So
number three, basically, is did the laws comply, er, did the will rather comply
with the laws of any state in which these three things are true at any of
these two times. So if any of those are true then the will will be recognized as
valid California. So as you can probably guess there are a lot of different ways
in which a will could be determined to be valid in California. I would imagine
in certain instances that's very helpful and, you know, also in a number of other
instances that's probably not very helpful, but that is the way, you know,
life is. So hopefully that made sense. Go ahead and subscribe, share, like, comment,
etc. and I will talk to you guys next time.
Thanks.